WELCOME BACK TO MANHATTAN BEACH (Part Four), SAT22JUN2013 MOR

Loc: Manhattan Beach

Crew: Christina, Cheryl, Silverton

Conditions: 2 FT+, offshore, inconsistent.

     Either EVA or Lion Airlines did a number on my boards. Flying back from Indo, I had unzipped my boardbag to find that the tails of both boards were crushed. Motherfuckers. . . I spent the greater part of yesterday trying to fix the Tokoro that Randy had given me, but the best I could do was prepare the repair for Rick by sanding down the web of fractures. But the Lost board, at least I was able to handle that repair on my own.

#

     Today is a day of zero expectations. I know that the surf will be small, but that’s okay. It’s a good opportunity to test the Lost board in small, local surf. In Java this was my magic board at Choco Point. Its volume and shape is meant for hollow waves, but it still works well in soft surf, nothing in between.

     Parking this morning is a bitch; it’s one aspect of the SoCal surfing experience that I don’t miss. Since it’s the weekend, everyone is here early, so I have to park far away at my “last resort” spot.

     Walking down the hill, I can see that the surf is small, maybe two feet with some that are occasionally bigger. I stick with my 2/2 wetsuit today. Without a good, longsleeve rashguard, I can’t trunk it. Not yet.

     With the swell dying off, the crowd’s not as thick as expected. I paddle out to the tower and sit with Oscar in the lineup.

Magic Board:

     I’m stoked about my Lost board because if it works well today, I’ll have a “go to” board when surfing small days with Bri. It doesn’t take long to feel how easy it is to paddle into waves with this thing. With so much width and thickness, I get into the waves with minimum effort.

     I catch some plus-sized rights, and I do feel a little hung up, like I’d be better off with my Motorboat. However, I put as much weight as I can on the tail and lean forward, to the point of almost falling, in order to crack the lip. I do fall at the end, but it feels good trying to make the most out of the wave with my board. 

Breakthrough:

     Christina shows up a little later. She says that she asked Cheryl to bring my old Becker board today so that Bri can play around with it if she wants to step down to ride something smaller. She says she wants to progress on her turns, and I give her some advice, suggesting that she start experimenting with trimming from top to bottom on the face of the wave and that eventually she’ll be able to turn. “Just have fun,” I say. “That’s the most important part.”

#

     There’s this guy in the lineup with short, black, curly hair. He’s on a white funboard, and he has green trim on his wetsuit. He paddles up to where a couple of other guys and I have been sitting. On the next wave, he paddles out past all of us, gets to another guy’s inside, and takes the wave. “Damn,” says the guy who’s been waiting. “He back paddled me.” He paddles back to where he was sitting. “All right. No more Mr. Nice Guy.”

     In Java, even though there had been days when Germans were in my way or the local groms were a little greedy, for the most part, people had etiquette. There was Dreadlock Eddie who, in the face of an oncoming wave, had said, “You’ve been waiting longer than me, brah. Go!” And then, Richard the Asshole comes to mind, how he had called me out in the water because I took a wave right after paddling out, despite the fact that he had been there waiting for one. Yes . . . I have to admit, that asshole did have a point, and I’m learning from that.

     A little bit later, a different longboarder drops in on the same guy who had gotten back paddled earlier. Even though the longboarder is snaking him, he still rides the wave until they are almost nutt to butt, and then they fall close together on the inside.

     The backpaddler with the green wetsuit returns to sit where I am again. He catches a wave, comes back, and immediately catches another one. Guys who have been waiting have to pull out because of this guy. He’s a good surfer, but his energy is greedy and aggressive, like he’s showing off. Is that really necessary, especially on a small, mellow day like this? I feel sorry for the guys who have been waiting. Just because you can take a wave doesn’t mean that you should take every single one. I see Richard the Asshole in a different light.

     I had studied martial arts many years ago. I was into it before surfing. I remember one of my teachers had said, “Once you learn how to use your body as a weapon, the next step is to learn to use it responsibly.” Now I know this sounds cliché, but I relate this to surfing. Just because you can surf well and catch pretty much every wave doesn’t mean that you should. This guy in the green wetsuit, I can’t say I don’t like him, but I don’t like his surfing.

     Paddling to a different area, I sit still in the group. On the next wave, the surfers around me jockey for position, but I paddle a little outside and let them have it. On the wave after, a lot of surfers are on the inside. The only guy sitting next to me is sitting still, not making a move. “Go for it,” I say, and that’s what I do even after I catch a wave. I practice good etiquette, letting the other guys who’ve been waiting go first, and then I go on the third or fourth wave. The energy changes around me. Surfers willingly smile more when they paddle back. A random guy asks me how my writing’s going. I don’t even remember his name. I ask. It’s Mitch.

     There’s this little two-foot left that I get. I catch it so easy. It’s lining up towards the inside. On my fat and wide board, I do a little cutback, redirect it back down the line, and end with a small carve. That wave alone gives me the sense of serenity in the water that I’ve been looking for all along. It takes a small day of surf to find it.

     Sharing with others, strangers, feels good in the lineup. There’s a way to do it that makes it noticeable. Instead of being concerned about my own performance, it’s nice to step back and let others get theirs. This improves my mood.

     Also, that little two-turn wave that I got made me feel more complete than any other wave since I’ve been home. It’s because the voices were silenced; I didn’t care if anyone was watching and I wasn’t trying to prove anything to myself. I simply just rode the wave.

     I had met this guy named Chad Sayers during my trip to Bali. While talking about a recent surf session that we had together at Balingan, he had said, “I finally feel comfortable with my surfing, like . . . I can be out there and just exist.” At the time, I thought I had understood what he meant, but I didn’t.

     Right now, paddling back to the lineup after that little, two-turn, two-footer ride, I understand Chad. During my last three sessions home, I had been putting too much pressure on myself to surf different—more improved. Just because I had been to Java, I felt that I had to “show” it. In that process, I was missing the beauty of just being on a wave. From now on I need to just be in the moment and surf for myself, not for others or my own, inflated expectations. It doesn’t matter what other people think, and as soon as I get over that, I’ll get the most out of my surfing.